I'm Ready

So it is that time of the year—our last week in our schools—and everyone is already feeling super nostalgic about their time in their placements. How do I know this? Because, I can’t help but see the posts all over social media of other ETAs praising their students and teachers, lamenting about the fact that they are going home soon, and just genuinely being really sappy about how much they have loved their time in Malaysia. 

I recently posted on Instagram about how excited I am for cold weather. 

Needless to say—not for the first time this year—I feel a serious distance between myself and how everyone else in my cohort is (showing the world they are) feeling. While I am sure that everyone’s emotions are way more complex than they are presenting on social media, I have to admit it is seriously grating to see so many people feeling so great about their experience in their schools. Even if it is all a show, I am really sick of it. It makes me feel like what I am feeling— elation at the impending reality of not being an ETA at this school anymore—is wrong. Once again, I feel like I am not ETA-ing correctly. I see what other people are saying about their experiences, and I just feel really self-conscious about having a differing opinion about the end of the grant. It just re-confirms that I had a year that was outside of the norm and outside of what this experience is meant to be.   

Although it feels terrible to not have shared the same positive experience as everyone else, I have to remind myself that my experience—as much of an outlier as it is—is still valid and genuine. And even though everyone is presenting on social media that they are so heartbroken to leave and would stay another year if they could, I know that is not the complete truth for most people. It is easy to look at this experience through rose colored glasses when you are basically at the finish line. 

My difficult experience in my school is one of the main reasons I was motivated to apply for the assistant coordinator position in this program. I wanted to share my experience with the new cohort because I felt like it was important that they hear that this year is not going to be “the best year ever” for everyone. Not every person is going to come away from this feeling some deep meaningful connection with their entire school community. I certainly don’t. I will miss a lot of the people and students I have met. But, if I am going to cry in the next few days they will be tears of relief more than anything else.  

So I guess I just wanted to write this post to be at least the one person to say, I AM F*CKING READY TO LEAVE! 

And that is okay. That is normal. I am not ashamed.  

The Beginning of the End

Me on my 23rd birthday at the BOH Tea Plantation in the Cameron Highlands!

I'm getting the point where I am just constantly exhausted. A couple weeks ago I was on the phone with my mom and I was giving her the run-down of my schedule for the coming months and I realized that I am just incredibly busy. Since I last posted, I have taken trips to Laos and Cambodia, which were both beautiful and exciting countries. I have taken road trips to help out with other English camps, sent a weekend on the beach with a friend from college, and I turned twenty three! In the near future I have a scuba-diving trip in the Perhentian Islands planned and a vacation in Thailand about three weeks after that. In between I have (another) new class schedule to adjust to, student programming to plan and assist with, jobs to apply for, and the task of moving out of my house to return to the USA because this grant is over in two months! Oh and I somehow have to find the time to plan a multinational-two-week-post-grant backpacking trip with a friend from college who is normally sleeping when I am awake (thanks a lot 15 hour time difference). 

Young monks receiving offerings at sunrise in Luang Prabang, Laos

Elephants at the National Elephant Reserve in Pahang, Malaysia 

I am by no means complaining. I realize what a blessing it has been for me to be able to experience all that I have in the past 8 months. I am so excited for what these next 2 months have in store but I am also worried about how difficult it will be to adjust back to life in the USA. I have decided to move back to St. Louis, my hometown, because I have been longing to be somewhere I already intimately know. And for whatever problems St. Louis is dealing with (and the USA as a whole) it will always be the first city I loved and I hope that in this next year I will learn to love it even more while living there as an adult. But honestly what concerns me is that I am not giving myself anytime to process what this experience has meant, how it has changed me, and how I will use it in my future. I know people will ask me “How was Malaysia? What was your time like there?” and I am increasingly realizing I am not quite sure how to answer that question. Often, I am not sure how I feel here. Outside of emotions that exist on the ends of the spectrum, I do not really know what my “normal” feeling here is. Maybe it is because normal is so incredibly strange that my perception is skewed, or because I just can’t really find the words. I blame this partially on my dwindling vocabulary and partially on the fact that many parts of this experience (especially how I feel about it) is simply inexplicable. I think of the saying “to know where you are going you’ve got to know where you have been” and  just where have I been this year? I can point it out on a map, trace the paths I have taken with a pencil and a ruler but I can’t really zoom in on the person to person (and person to organization) interactions that actually define where I am. How can i adjust to a new normal (which is really an old normal) if this current normal (which is still such a new normal) isn’t normal but I feel normal in it but not normal but that’s normal….isn’t it? I don’t know. Now, I'm sure, we are all confused. But at least (maybe?) you are starting to see what I am dealing with.  

Kuang Si Waterfall in Luang Prabang, Laos 

A lot of people I have talked to about the end of the grant have been thinking about reflection about, decompressing from, and figuring out a way to give a synopsis for this experience too. And I know it will help at least a bit to gather together as one cohort for the final time before we leave. It’ll be the last time I am in this community of Fulbright Malaysia ETAs who understand (more than anyone else will) what I am saying when I say it or don't say it, or can’t. For me, that will be the first time I stop and really sit with the fact that this time in my life is over. And while l am so excited to be heading back to the USA leaving is going to be so hard. I have made myself comfortable in situations where, a year ago, I would not have conceived it was possible. I have put in so much physical and emotional work and earned spaces for myself where there previously weren’t any. I have adventured around the country and the region and my house actually feels like home now. There are still so many things that I want and need to do before my time is over so I just honestly do not have time to really think about how things are ending. I don’t really know how to think about things ending either. All I know is I supposed to be looking forward to my next steps after this and that means soon ill have to break down this experience to consumable parts  for both myself and those around me and I don’t think I can. At this point I know I can’t and I don’t see how two months left in my community and school and 3 days of programming is going to change that very much. So I guess this is all to say I don’t know how Malaysia has been. I am still digesting and making sense of it for myself. And until I do I don’t know how I can use this experience to move forward in my life. How can I consciously integrate what I have learned and experienced here in order to progress in my career and educational aspirations? Is it even supposed to be a conscious integration? Ugh. I just don’t know. And i’m too tired and too busy to figure it out. I guess that is what the holidays are for. 

Ten weeks until I am home. I cannot believe it. 

Angkor Wat Temple, Siem Reap, Cambodia 

Kebonbong

Part of my job here as an ETA is to conduct “English Camps”. They are basically special programs for students that last for at least four hours. Most English Camps have themes, any theme is acceptable as long as you can create activities for them. People in my cohort are so creative, they have hosted camps with themes such as superhero, super-spy, journalism, cooking competitions, survivor, kindness camp, and girls empowerment. Last week I co-hosted a state-wide English camp with the four other ETAs in my state which was titled “Once Upon a Time in Perlis”. The goal of our state camp was to have 100 students from our 5 schools come together to bring to life 10 short plays based on popular fairytales that us ETAs grew up with. To be completely honest I was extremely skeptical about how successful this was going to be. It was a tall order. This meant getting 10 groups of 10 students who don’t know each other to act, direct, create props, backgrounds, costumes AND perform on stage in front of an audience in less than 48 hours! And everyone there to help them ONLY speaks English! The morning of the first day I mentally prepared myself for complete and utter failure. My students barely talk in class let alone ACT on A STAGE. The idea that they could even be loud enough for the audience to hear without microphones seemed absurd to me.  

I carried my skepticism with me like a shield throughout the entire camp, I told myself not to expect too much. Sure, I pushed them to be loud and we all tried our best to help our students feel confident in this experience  which was way outside of their comfort zones but I still prepared myself for disaster when performance time came. And to be completely honest I was totally blown away by just how successful our students were. Students were loud and serious and passionate, they took chances and adapted the plays in fun ways that we did not expect. They were creative and confident and we also had so much fun. Not only that but they were respectful and friendly to each other and we did not have many serious problems. At the end of the performances on the second day I felt like crying tears of joy and pride. I saw some of my students, who were so shy  in school, get up on stage and act in front of their peers and they actually enjoyed it! Some of them had even volunteered for the leads! I couldn’t be happier. When I got back to school I had students telling me that it was “the best English camp ever teacher!” and I could have died of happiness. The student’s success at our camp was a real moment of affirmation for all of us. And affirmation is NOT something that happens EVER in this experience. 

Group photo of all the students and ETAs in the State Camp 

And just when I was feeling confident about my impact and how my students saw me, the first class I had after the weekend quickly brought me back down to earth. First, the lead teacher told me five minutes into the class period that she wouldn’t be attending the class that day. Instead of having a lesson prepared for me to take over she handed me a SINGLE worksheet and asked me to help the students complete it. Needless to say that did not workout well. When I returned to class and informed the students that the other teacher was not coming, all of the students started to chant “GAME! GAME! GAME!”.  I had to shout for them to quiet down and  told them we had work to complete. As I transcribed the worksheet onto the board for students to complete, I realized it was way above their understanding (I could barely understand some of the instructions) and after revising the assignment on the spot most students basically refused to even try to complete the lesson. Instead they chose to mock me in a way that has become classic for this class in particular. They speak to me in rapid malay and then when I tell them I do not understand or ask them to speak slower they roar with laughter at my expense. It is a joke that got old (for me at least) a very long time ago. I left the class feeling defeated, sad, angry , and just plain tired of this shit that keeps happening. I got back to my desk and felt like crying. I wondered, “why is it that as soon as I have a good streak going something has to happen to make me question myself again?” 

Just as I was about to allow myself to drown in my sorrows, my mentor came back to his desk holding a bag full of what looked like limes. (If you have kept up with my blog you know that my mentor and I have had quite an interesting relationship. At times I wanna hug him, most of the time I want to karate chop him in the throat, but he never fails to surprise me). Recently I have been seeing a lot more of a caring side to him.  A few weeks ago he took his only child to college in Kuala Lumpur, just five hours away by car, but I think it made him see the impact that distance from loved ones can have on a person. I think he realized that I must be lonely.The day before he took his son to college, he sighed and told me to call my mom because “she misses you”). My mentor has never really been one to ask me how I am doing or actively try to cheer me up. But sometimes I think he knows when I am feeling down and he will tell me the latest gossip, invite me to eat with him in the canteen, tell me a story or folktale, or like to day, give me some new random food to try.  

Today that food was Kebonbong, it is a fruit native to Malaysia and it is kind of hard to describe. It grows on trees—my mentor got a kilo from a staff member who has a tree in her back yard—and before it is peeled it looks like a bit like if an avocado and a lime had a baby. It is small, I can easily hold two or three in one hand, and hard like a rock. When you peel off the skin you can smell the sweet and tangy flavour. The flesh is white and stiff like an unripe pear. It crunches as you bite into it and the flavour is bitter, sweet, sour, and tangy all at once. When I eat it my nose scrunches and I hate it but I love it at the same time. My mentor peeled and sliced one and we shared it as he told me about different ways to eat kebonbong, how it is the oldest fruit in malaysia, and his undying love for sour stuff. He cracked a joke, filled me in on school gossip, and ended up giving me half the kilo of this fruit I both love and hate to take home with me. Our conversation sparked other teachers to talk with me about their opinions on the fruit and how to make sambal belachan, a sweet and spicy (and of course fishy) paste that most people eat with kebonbong. And I felt the day turn around just a little bit. 

A handful of kebonbong :) 

This year has been full of ups and downs. As soon as I have a great moment in one class or a successful program something else in my life turns sour. But then the moment I just want to curl onto a ball in my bed, a teacher invites me to sit with them at the canteen, or a students comes a bit farther out of their shell, or my roommate makes me laugh so hard that i spit out my water and i feel a little weight life off my shoulders. Everyday here is like taking another bite out of a kebonbong: bitter yet sweet, tart but satisfying and I keep taking another bite, though I am not always completely sure why. 

I have less than 100 days left as an ETA in Perlis. Tomorrow is the beginning of my 8th month in Malaysia and sometimes i’m just as unsure as I was on my first day. I came to the conclusion long ago that some things about this experience will never change, including some things I really don’t like, and I have made a certain kind of peace with that. But each day is a special experience and with so few days left I am starting to realize how much I will miss even the rowdiest, craziest, laziest students I have had the honour to (try to) teach. 

The Six Month Mark

Three days ago marked the end of my sixth month in Malaysia. Last night I lay awake counting the number of days I had left in my school; there are less than 80. I am officially on the other side of the hill in this experience. As is tradition when facing the end of a chapter in my life,  I am not really sure what I want I want to do next. I have no plot, setting, or character list laid out for this new part of my story. Now, with more time behind me than ahead in Perlis, I have turned my senses toward home with increased urgency. I look forward to hugging my mom, laughing with my cousins, and catching up with friends and family. But the reunion with loved ones will only last so long and after the holiday season comes to a close I need a goal to pursue. 

Like most people in my generation, I have moved from space to space looking for meaning and fulfillment in what I am focusing my time and energy into. And I hope that I will be more successful in my next choice than I was here in that aspect. Not that I believe my work here is meaningless, but I have not felt as fulfilled as I anticipated, and that has been extremely disappointing especially when dealing with so many other factors that have made this experience so challenging. The issues I have faced while doing this work have given me an intense anxiety when considering the next move I will make and next organization and community I will choose to be apart of. As I try to make a plan or try to think about my aspirations in a realistic way, I am plagued with unanswerable questions: What if I am disappointed again? What if I am never as content as I want to be? Should I try to rebuild the life I had for myself before moving to Malaysia? What if I can’t? Do I really want that if it is possible? Where will I live? What steps should I be taking to get to my end goal? What even is my end goal? 

What. Is. Next? 

I know from conversations with my fellow ETAs I am not the only one asking these questions and struggling to find the answers. I am having flashbacks to my final weeks as a college student, where the question “what happens next?” hung around our heads, constantly swinging into our line of sight like the tassels on our graduation caps. Once again, I am being ushered into the reality of moving, packing, evolving, and planning for the future (whatever that might be); a state of being that is synonymous with terms like twenty-something, millennial, and recent college graduate.  

The end of this experience is coming faster than I expected and as of now I do not have a plan. But four months is a long time and, like trying to solidify a thesis in my writing, I tend to not realize I have discovered the path until I am already several strides down it. When my sister came to visit me she asked me to, “just tell me what to do next Naja, please”. She saw my life as a series of good first choices and wanted me to help her choose her next step since, from the outside looking in, it looked like I was pretty good at planning my life. I had to admit to her (and myself) that most of the major choices I have made have not really been my choices at all. My college counselor in high school told me to go to Loyola for undergrad, I accidentally discovered my love for Sociology after a mishap while registering for classes freshman year, I studied abroad because all my friends were doing it, I applied for the Fulbright because of the suggestion of a professor and chose Malaysia based on the opinions of a friend. The most I do to make these things happen is just to take an opportunity as it presents itself (normally in the form of someone smarter than me suggesting it). Up until this point I have just done what feels right and exciting and I have been happy. So, I guess my anxiety and fear is not that necessary, because so far this method of just stumbling upon the next thing has worked out really well. 

But I have always liked the idea of having a longterm plan. Of seeing a finish line and planning carefully what I am going to do to get there. Like someone preparing for a marathon (though long distance running does not sound appealing to me at all). So many of the people in my cohort have a “big picture” they are painting with a fine haired brush. So many are able to tell me just how this experience fits into their 5 year plan. I cannot do that. I did not really know what I wanted out of coming to be an English Teaching Assistant in Malaysia beyond just having the experience itself and seeing a part of the world I was always too afraid to consider accessible. I do not feel embarrassed or ashamed of this because my reasons were genuine, though not necessarily goal-oriented. But now that I do not have someone to tell me what to do, and I am at a loss. So I am trying to look for a sign or a suggestion but as it stands I haven’t found anything and this does not necessarily feel productive. How do I trust my process if it isn’t really a process at all? 

One of my best friends, Jacqueline, always says not to worry and that everything will work out. We met while studying abroad in Botswana and if you have ever spent time in Botswana you know what I mean when I say that things almost never go as planned. When this would happen I would feel like the world was crashing all around us and she would look me in my eyes completely calm and serious and tell me that she is never worried “because things have always worked out for the best  in life and so why would things start to go wrong now?” Truth be told, when I was first getting to know her I thought she was crazy. But as our friendship grew I realized that Jacqueline simply has an unshakeable faith in the process of things. And honest, things normally do work out, sometimes not in ways I want or expect but in the aftermath I am always grateful for the experience. Jacqueline’s faith is rooted in a higher power and plan, in the path creating itself. So I guess I should stop trying to be someone I am not and give up on the idea of having a rigid plan and allow myself trust in the way the path illuminates itself instead of painstakingly searching for it.  

Besides, if you are always looking down trying to figure out the right direction to go, you’re going to miss the magic that is happening all around you. So instead of looking down I will keep my head up, staying open to opportunities that might present themselves. Like my now-eight-year-old cousin said to me a few summers ago, “keep looking around because something amazing might happen”. And if my life up until this point is any proof, something amazing always does. 

Understanding

Over the break I was lucky enough to have my older sister come into town to visit me for nearly two weeks. Unfortunately, we did not make it up to Perlis so she could really see where I was living but we did some traveling within peninsular Malaysia—Kuala Lumpur, Penang, and Melaka—and then on to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam for a few days. While it was definitely difficult to travel together for two weeks, something we had never done before, it was cool to be able to show her a small piece of this country I have called home for the past five months. 

Since being here I have often lamented about the fact that I am in a world of strangers. My co-workers at school barely know anything about me. The worlds we grew up in were so far removed from one another in so many ways it makes it difficult for them to conceptualize my life in the United States. And while I have grown incredibly close with the four girls in my state, especially my housemates, there is only so much you can know about a person who you have only met a few months ago. While it was really wonderful to have someone who I have known for quite literally my entire life with me, my sister’s visit made it glaringly obvious that this life I am living now is not really knowable for you all, the people who read my blog and leave me WhatsApp voice messages, my friends and family. As hard as it is for the Malaysian people in my life here to understand my life back home, it will be just as difficult for people back home to understand my life here. 

Even after being here and getting a taste of the heat, food, and culture it was hard for my sister to really understand what I was experiencing even though she was right there next to me. Part of this is because she was here very much as a tourist, we visited popular cities, went to museums, and tried the most popular foods. She had me as a guide—though in many ways I am still trying to figure it all out too—but I haggled down prices, translated menus, bought bus tickets, planned travel and called rides. Not saying that it was a bad thing or even complaining about having the responsibility, but through this trip there was really no way for her to understand what it was like for me to live and exist in my community for almost a year. In this community I am both an outsider and an insider, I know things and am still figuring it out, I am a resident of Malaysia and in many ways still a tourist. This semi permanent position in both this job and this community is so complex that it is really difficult to put into words. 

A great example of this was about a month and a half ago I was on the phone with one of my friends during a break I had at school. Ultimately, we were trying to hash out the details of the plan to meet me at the end of the grant term and travel through South East Asia together but, as friends do, we began chatting about our respective lives at present. As I was explaining to her how removed I felt from the students and teachers at my school, detailing how difficult it is to feel appreciated, a group of female students walked past me. As they passed they erupted in a chorus of “good morning teacher”, “I love you teacher”, and “how are you teacher”! I replied back “good morning students, I am fine and I of course I love you too!” My friend, upon hearing this, was basically un able to understand how, though I regularly received bouts of verbal affection from students I  could feel disillusioned or disconnected from them. I struggled to explain to her the differences in relationship norms between students and teachers in Malaysia and the US and how, with my position being somewhere near teacher but not quite, informed my relationship with students. When I went home and told my roommates about it they both understood perfectly how the covert disconnection was there even with such overt expressions of love and happiness about my presence. 

The only people who truly understand my experience that I am having are the people who have lived it. (And really only the people who have been ETAs on peninsular Malaysia because Borneo is really like a totally different country.) I have realized just how much less needs to be said when telling a story, or detailing a problem, when talking to a ETA or a coordinator than with someone from back home. While yes, of course, my family and friends back in the States do know me better than anyone with me in Malaysia, the people here will always understand the context of this experience much more. I, for so long, thought it would be easier for me to be here if I could just bring my whole life with me, but that isn’t how it works is it?  It would be easier to be myself with the people who I have known longer, who no longer need an explanation about what makes me laugh, cry, or angry. The familiarity of life back home is easier for me to just be Naja. But here I am more than that, I am Naja in Malaysia. And Naja in Malaysia needs what Naja in the USA cannot give her which is allies in this experience.  

So thank goodness for all the weirdos who also decided to come along on this journey. We did not begin it together but we are going through it together. Midyear break was ultimately a reminder of the feeling I had of being surrounded by everyone else in the cohort at the start of this journey so many weeks ago now. I felt at peace, I felt support and I felt a lot less alone. As isolating as this experience is I need only reach out to other people going through it when I need to talk to someone who needs no explanation at all, who do not try to offer solutions that they do not understand are not available, who understand how something can be both hilarious and frustrating, who can laugh at jokes that need too much context otherwise, and with whom I have developed a pseudo language of English with horrible grammar and a smattering of Malay words and idioms that really no one else (Malaysian or American) can really understand. 

Comeback Kid

A few weeks ago a professor from my school emailed me asking for updates about how I am doing and details on what I am feeling about my experience so far. She is the person who encouraged me to apply for the Fulbright and mentored me throughout my application process, reading and re-reading my essays, providing insight, criticism, and endless support. (She is also the professor whose class, which I took early on in college career, kicked my butt and pushed me to be a better student and helped me develop my voice in my writing.) After sending her a fairly long email about my thoughts, feelings, and experiences, I received her reply this morning. Two things she said really stuck out to me as things I need to keep in mind during the second half of this journey: 

1. “Just think of this as a time to learn learn learn about another culture and education system instead of a time to actually teach…” 

2. "I’m rooting for you!” 

The first thing, about shifting my perspective about what my time here actually means, is something I have been forced to constantly do since my arrival. Before coming here I was pretty nervous to be responsible for high school student’s English education for an entire school year. I had never been a teacher in a formal classroom setting before. I even wrote a blog post earlier in the year about how I have never wanted to be a teacher. But honestly I have not really been teaching that much. Sure, I assist and lead lessons in the classroom almost every day, but I do not think that when I leave the memory that the  students I have worked with will have of me will be connected to a specific lesson. And I have no tangible proof that any of the lessons that I have taught by myself have stuck with any of the students. This is partly because the times I am teaching my own lessons have no real schedule or repetitiveness and therefore it does not allow time for me to review or check understanding the following day, and also because students know I am not teaching them  things that will specifically be on their exams and therefore do not make effort to remember the lessons. This is definitely a double edge sword that cuts through any chance I have at effectively teaching anything. 

What is really interesting about having this realization—that I do not have a set class that I can regularly teach lessons I have created in a coherent pattern—is that actually want that experience. (I can hear my family’s collective “we told you so” now.) While I am still convinced that being an educator is not something I would want to continue to do for the rest of my days, this time as an ETA has taught me that I do want to be an actual teacher, at least for a while.  

For now though I need to let go of that desire and focus on this identity I am currently claiming. I am, in most ways, a student. This entire region of the world is my classroom and I need to take in as much as I can. That means asking more questions, stewing in the discomfort, and trying to make sense of it all, instead of taking things personally. I came into this experience without many expectations of what my time will be like but after being here for a while I realize that I have been building up so many expectations through comparison with other ETA’s stories. Short of cutting off all communication with anyone in my cohort, it is basically impossible not to keep up with what other people are doing, but I need to work on compartmentalizing what I see and hear about other ETA’s experiences and what my own is like. Our schools and communities are all separate self-sustaining microcosms and instead of pining about how the grass is always greener I need to stop and smell the roses in my own backyard. 

The second thing that my professor said—that she is rooting for me—is something that I have been blessed enough to hear continuously throughout my life. My family, friends, and teachers have always shown me support and guidance in the different things that I do. But, being half a day ahead of everyone in the US makes it really difficult to stay in touch with people. Most of my conversations with friends and family are voice and text messages left in reply to one another when we have a spare minute during the day. I have to schedule days (sometimes weeks) in advance with most loved ones if we want to actually talk on the phone and have a conversation in real-time. My professor’s words were a wonderful reminder of how vast my support system back home really is. It can be hard to remember, because of how isolated I am from the community here, that I am not alone.  Because every interaction here is slightly strained (because of the effort it takes to breach communication barriers) it is nice to be reminded of all the communities and groups I am apart of with whom I can interact with ease. I helps me to realize that this isolation I experience at my school is not a reflection of my personality or my potential  but a situational consequence of where I am. 

My mom always says, “Be a problem solver not a problem maker”, and this time in Perlis has definitely been forcing me to put those positive thinking practices my mother instilled in me to the test. But just like always, when I am starting to feel incredibly down in the dumps and the woe-is-me-mindset is clouding my thoughts, someone in my vast support group gives me the push  and prod I need to get back to the problem solving habits that have served me well throughout my life. (If my mom’s mantra can get me through statistics it can get me through anything right?)  Besides, with the end of month five just around the corner I have already made it through the uphill climb! Im sure, like any downhill slide, I will receive just as many bruises and bumps as the way up but there’s something sweet about knowing you’ve passed the halfway point. I have more time behind me that I do ahead and that is giving me the motivation to step my game back up and work towards a second semester that I can be really proud of. Stay tuned y’all because, like any sports fan knows, the second half is when it gets good. 

On being an object

Objectify (v): to treat (someone) as an object rather than as a person. 

 Within feminist discussion, sexual objectification is at the forefront of every conversation about objectification. As a young woman the experience of sexual objectification is unfortunately all too familiar for it to not have been the dominating my association with the word. However, since beginning to work in my school I have been subjected to objectification in a new capacity.  The way that I consider the term objectification has changed as a result. 

There is a classic riddle that I have been thinking about a lot recently. One of the things that drove me to write this post that I have been reluctant to compose for a while now. I goes like this, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”  

I spend the majority of my time, at school and in my community, completely immersed in a language that I am not able to understand. Between the rapid pace at which people speak, pronunciation which lends itself to blending words, and my really horrible vocabulary memory, my ongoing attempt to learn Malay has not been very successful. I would say that about 95% of the time I have absolutely no clue what anyone is talking about. And generally teachers and students don’t really do anything to help me understand. For the most part I guess I get it, it is hard to constantly remember that there is that one American in the school who does not know what is being said, and can be pretty awkward to try to constantly translate into a language you are not comfortable speaking in. I have tried to stop thinking about what I would do if the situation was reversed because I have never been on the other side of this awkward linguistic tango. (Frankly, imagining what I would do can be a frustrating because I assume that I would put more effort into inclusion than what generally happens at my school.) But since I cannot change my situation, I am trying to make the best of it by just getting used to it. It does not mean I am giving up on learning Malay—I ask teachers what certain words mean, try to write down phrases I hear (or think I hear) and see a lot, and am constantly trying to recruit a Malay tutor from the teachers I interact with more often, but I am not allowing myself to be frustrated with how little I understand things. I try to understand as much as I can from context clues and snippets from vocabulary I recognize, but for the most part when people are talking around me I just tune it out, wait for someone to address me, and if not just kind of do my own thing.   

A couple of weeks ago my school celebrated “hari kanteen” (canteen day). This was basically a day where students and teachers ran different food, drink, and activity booths in order to raise money for the different student organizations and clubs that they are a part of. For me, this meant wandering around aimlessly basically all day stuffing myself with Malaysian delicacies, becoming the “model” (read: guinea pig) for a teacher’s Mary Kay makeup booth, and going through an elaborately executed haunted house (imagine a bunch high-school boys with tons of fake blood, black cloth, and masks trying to scare the daylights out of their peers).  

While these two full days of festivities were super interesting (and delicious), I spent most of the time sitting with groups of teachers while they talked about and around me in Malay. It was a really interesting time but those moments that are full of energy and conversation are when I feel the most lonely in my school. I am not able to fully engage with what is going on because I am watching and not really participating due to the language barrier. I did not realize how much this has really been effecting me or how used to this feeling I have gotten until hari kanteen. I sat next to a tuition teacher (basically a private tutor) who works with Form 5 students in after-school classes, she is getting her masters in English language education and just recently moved back to Perlis after living for several years in Kuala Lumpur. Throughout her conversations with teachers she was translating for me what was being said, and responding in English even when speaking with other teachers, making a conscious effort not to make me feel left out. If she forgot to translate or slipped back into Malay for a while she would apologize and catch me up in the conversation. I felt so much gratitude for her throughout the whole day, we actually had substantial conversations: she told me a lot about herself, and asked me about my life and future plans and feelings about being here. She really wanted to get to know me for me and become my friend. Obviously she felt more comfortable having a conversation with me because of her profession and education background. But what I valued more than her translating and english skills was the feeling of being recognized and acknowledged. I felt like she saw me as a person, a colleague, a friend even, and that is not something I really feel very often at my school. 

The longer that I have been here the more that I realize I am basically seen as a walking, talking, English lesson for the teachers, administrators, and students. Basically I exist as a way to force people at my school to speak English, therefore helping them to increase their vocabulary and confidence. But like any lesson, most people only participate if they are required to or passionate about it.  My mentor encourages me to speak with teachers (and vice versa), and there are some teachers who are generally excited to speak with me and get better at english. So in a way it is best that Im not fluent in Malay because then I wouldn’t fully be doing what I have ascertained is an important part of my role in my school. But it is exhausting to constantly exist not so much as a person but as a dictionary, a puzzle, a brain teaser, something that people engage with when they are seeking a challenge rather than someone people speak to for companionship. 

I feel a special type of isolation to be in a full room, or sitting at a full table in the canteen and have no one address me . It makes me feel invisible. I try not to take it so personally, but honestly how can I not take personally actions that deny me my personhood?  I know it is not about me specifically. I have not consciously done anything to push teachers and students away or make them uncomfortable. It is just this cavernous language barrier that none of us know  how to navigate well. Had I come into this experience with a wealth of knowledge in Malay I know I would be having a very different experience. 

This is not to say that no one ever speaks to me. But just that when they do I know it is because they are making a really conscious effort to do so. People have to actively remember to include me. I recognize the most comfortable space is to default to one’s first language. I am always grateful to the people who work to help me stay apart of the conversation. But even still, it does hurt to go through the day not being part of the conversation (and therefore not really apart of the community), sometimes actively being avoided just because people don’t want to be uncomfortable. It is doubly frustrating when people who have the capability to keep me in the conversation do not do so for whatever reason. While I am here I cannot simply choose not to be uncomfortable by avoiding the language barrier because I am completely surrounded by it everywhere I go. I wake up everyday in a place where I am constantly and relentlessly uncomfortable and I can’t change it. I do not know if people have not considered how difficult this is for me or just do not care. The lack of consideration about my comfort level or feelings about how I am treated (more like not treated) has to be directly correlated to the fact that no one really thinks of me. Me, Naja, not the ETA, the american, the foreigner, or the outsider. Me the young woman all the way on the other side of the world from everything familiar just trying to be seen. But why would you work to meet someone halfway if they are not even a someone to you in the first place, right? 

I left a work environment that was seriously fulfilling, with a employer and co-workers who saw me as an equal and a friend (despite being the youngest) and it can be very difficult to rationalize my decision to come here, to be immersed in this ceaseless isolation, this unending discomfort, this complete denial of consideration. I know I am gaining a lot from this experience but I cannot help but mourn the loss of what I had before. I cannot help but to be off-put by this blatant, habitual disregard. 

This objectification is taking a toll on me in ways I did not anticipate. The constant lack of acknowledgement as an actual complex person with emotions, opinions, and a need for more than baseline human interaction on the best days is a slight bother but on the worst days makes me question more than just my effectiveness as this school’s ETA. And so I will leave you with this question, one that I have not been able to answer for myself but has been bothering me for the past few weeks. If I am here without acknowledgement it does it matter if I am here at all? 

Lessons on Fire Mountain

Mount Merapi at sunrise. 

Imagine me—an average, not particularly athletic or outdoorsy, midwestern girl who had never seen a volcano in person—trekking up the most active volcano in Indonesia at 3am in freezing weather, soaked in sweat and rain water, climbing towards (what I had expected to be) the most amazing sunrise I had ever experienced. Cant imagine that? I barely can either and that is exactly what I was doing one week ago.  

The sunrise hike up Gunung Merapi, “fire mountain”, seemed like a horrifying idea from the very beginning. I tried to play it cool when, in the group chat of the fellow ETAs I was traveling with,  one of the guys informed us that the hike was “only 4 hours each way”. I was terrified of the idea of hiking up anything, let alone an active volcano, especially at night. But, I reminded myself of the two mottos I have fallen back on during the various moments I have been overcome with extreme self doubt and fear of the choices I made to get me where I am: be bold and remain uncomfortable. Planning for the week long vacation in Indonesia—the first real vacation I had ever been on without a family member or close friend—a sunrise trek up a volcano seemed to fit the bill for a bold and uncomfortable move. I had no idea just how difficult the trek would be. Halfway up I started to seriously doubt the choices I had made to get me there. I was totally convinced I had had a moment of insanity when I decided it would be a good idea to pay to have to climb up and back down a constant incline for 8 consecutive hours, in severely cold weather with an even more severe wind, in the rain and hail, without a map, with a bunch of strangers and people I barely knew.  

This is not the kind of story where I get to the summit, look down into the crater below and sew lava and look up to see a beautiful sunrise which warms and revives me and I skip down the mountain with the realization that I can do anything in the world. If you know me, you know even my fairytale stories aren’t that much of a fairytale. (Like when, days after the hike, I along with two other friends, found an off-the-beaten-track waterfall and spent much of the day lounging in the fresh water pool at the base. I ended this fairytale adventure with a sunstroke and heat rash so bad I was out of school for two days upon returning to Malaysia.) But back to the story of how Mount Merapi whooped my butt: 

Obviously, the sun rose. But we couldn’t see it for the dense cloud of fog had surrounded upper part of the volcano. The magical sunrise I envisioned (which helped me power up the mountain) was more like the world just gradually got light enough for us to see without a headlamp. This sucked for two reasons: first, because of the thick cloud coverage it did not get any warmer and second, now I could see how high up I was and how far down I could fall if I accidentally toppled over the side. Oh and by the way, we did not even make it to the summit of the volcano. The wind speed was so high that our guides refused to take us to the summit, which was a plateau and would have not only been extremely cold but the wind was so strong and the fog was so dense that we could have easily been blown off. Not only did we not get to the top or see the sunrise, I was cold, and miserable and had a long way down. 

Even though Merapi was, for all intents and purposes, a bust without reaching the summit or seeing the sunrise, it was definitely an experience I am glad I had. Though I huffed and puffed my way through the whole thing (all the way in the back of the pack mind you), I felt so accomplished for not stopping and going as far as our guides (and mother nature) would allow. I felt extra satisfied when I talked to some of the more experienced trekkers and climbers in the group and they told me that it was a very difficult trek for them too. I had challenged myself and it paid off because now I realize I can do things that I never imagined I would be able to do. I spent a lot of time in silence, pushing myself to go higher and higher (and then to climb down which was a whole other beast in it of itself), and through all the torment I kind of started to see a glimpse of the reason behind why people love to do that kind of thing.  

The trek on Gunung Merapi taught me a few lessons that have already helped me to come to terms with my work this year and i’m sure will help guide me for the rest of my life. So here are some lessons I learned on Merapi: 

1. Not every step is going to be a sure one. 

I think this is the hardest realization to come to and a reason why I have always had an aversion to hiking, especially the coming back down part. I like certainty and stability especially when talking about literal things like where I placing my feet. Coming down from Merapi was a realization that not every step is going to be sure and that is okay. You have to trust the choices you make, the path you pick, and your ability to correct quickly or else you will do more harm that good.  

2. You will fall, and you might take some friends down with you. 

About halfway down we came across a serious patch of muddy land. Remember, the incline was steep so it was definitely going to be tricky. A few people went ahead of me with the guide’s help and then it was my turn. I took a couple steps, a guide reached out his hand to me I leaned to grab it an took another step and then I slipped and proceeded to slide about 10 feet down, taking the guide whose hand I held with me and the other guide who had reached fin to help when I began to slide down. I slid to a stop against a rock and hopped up howling with laughter. It had been both terrifying and hilarious. All my friends above me were laughing hysterically as well, one of the other girls slipped the exact same way I did but the guides were smart enough at that point to not let her drag them down with them. I was definitely embarrassed, I couldn’t stop apologizing to guides I had caused to fall with me. But they did not really care and totally shook it off with a laugh. I guessed it was not the first time a pretty inexperienced person on the trek had taken them down. Plus what’s a little more mud on your pants in the long run? Though I was embraced and significantly more muddy, I was not hurt and could keep going. Instead of letting the fact that I had fallen totally negatively affect me, I just decided to get back up and keep going and to be happy there was a rock there to stop me from falling too far down. 

3. Friendship means support 

Three months ago, every person I went on this trip with was a complete stranger. I don't really remember talking to most of them during the two week orientation in Kuala Lumpur in January. But through this week long trip, I felt a connection with all of them both as a group and on an individual level. This was never more apparent than during the Mount Merapi trek. They were all so supportive, nice, and encouraging. From holding my hand when I got too shaken on the way down, to words of encouragement when I did something right, to laughing at my jokes, cuddling with me when we were all freezing while waiting for the sunrise, and never rushing me up or making me feel bad for having to take a few breaks and always being in the back. Most of the people who trekked Merapi with me were more experienced than I was but they never made me feel inferior for my lack of trying, instead they were all excited for me for gaining more experience with them. Maybe that is the nature of the trekking community, maybe I just got lucky to have some super amazing people to trek with, but either way the support I received was an integral part of my success.

 

In Yogyakarta, hanging out after eating Gado Gado, a traditional Indonesia dish of boiled vegetables, tempe/tofu, eggs and peanut sauce.  

4. Always bring an extra jacket 

The day prior to the hike a few of the girls and I bought additional jackets at the market. in the moment I put up a bit of a stink about having to shell out extra money. When we were up in the clouds and freezing rain, I was so happy I had spent the cash on the windbreaker and was kicking myself for not always investing in a poncho. 

5. Not reaching your goal does not mean you failed 

There were several reasons beyond our control, or the control of our guides, as to why we were not able to reach the summit or see the sunrise. Standing in the wet cold on Merapi I could say I was a little more than disappointed that we did not get the views we anticipated. But once we reached the bottom again we all concluded that we had a great story to tell and really interesting bonding experience. When I am older and I back think on my first trek up an active volcano (and definitely one of the most difficult physical activities I have ever participated in) the member is inextricably linked with the people who experienced with me.  The connection we all made and memories we share as a group is so much more important than just being able to tick and experience off our bucket list. 

All in all, I am so grateful for the experience I had both on Merapi and in Indonesia. I never considered that I would be in a position to casually travel to Indonesia for week long vacation, so it is still really amazing to me that I actually did! This whole experience so far has been amazing because it has opened up the world in a way I did not realize I needed it to be. I feel now, more than ever, the endless possibilities that this world has to offer. The longer I spend away from home in this culture that is very different from anything I ever knew in the US, the more I the desire to see what else this earth has in store grows within me. The value of this experience is twofold: in inspiring me to go places I have never gone before and do things that scare me, and in allowing me to make connections with some really amazing people along the way.  

In my first entry for this blog, I talked about finding comfort during orientation in the community of other Fulbright Malaysia ETAs after feeling so isolated during my preparation to come here. If I am being honest with you, the feeling of community with the ETA Malaysia program at large dwindled significantly once I got to my placement. I made a few friends at orientation that I kept in touch with over the ensuing months, but it was hard not to feel isolated from them and the other ETAs in my cohort, even the ones in my state. As soon as we got to our placements our experiences, which had melded into one big mess during orientation, became very individualized as we started to begin our lives at our own schools and in our own homes. Between the struggles of finding my place in my school, the small number of other ETAs in my state, and feeling like I was not really being acknowledged in the large scale group Whatsapp chats that were created in the frenzy to keep connections an communication going during orientation, I began to feel the familiar sensation of isolation again. The vacation in Indonesia not only provided me with a much needed reprieve from the challenges of my everyday life in Perlis, but it helped me to gain and solidify connections with people in the cohort beyond just being in the same program. I was able to create and strengthen actual friendships with seven of the people in the Malaysia ETA cohort and that made me feel a lot less isolated and a little less crazy for choosing to hike up an active volcano. 

Being apart of this community of ETAs across Malaysia is definitely a strange place to be. While I do have a special tie to all 97 of the other people in the cohort—enough even to let them crash on my couch if there were ever in my city (either while in Malaysia or later when we are all spread out somewhere in the world). But, I would not necessarily say that I will come away from this experience with 97 friends. I expect the majority of us will go our separate ways, some of us without ever really getting to know one another, and never come face to face again. I think it is a really ambitious and pretty naive to assume that will all have the opportunity to forge a genuine connection with each other on a individual level before the 10 months are up. (Besides I feel like statistically, if there are 98 individuals then you are bound to not get along with at least 1 or 2 of them no matter how much you try.) There are definitely people in this cohort who have a lot more friends (or at least are a lot more well known that I am) and I definitely struggle with the desire to be well liked by everyone, no matter how unattainable that desire truly is. But after this vacation I can say, at least, my friend circle has expanded by 8 funny, inspiring, supportive, intelligent, talented people. And I have Indonesia—and especially Mount Merapi—to thank for it. 

On the way down on Merapi with some of our fabulous guides 

On Never Wanting to Be a Teacher

I grew up in a family full of educators. Almost every adult in my family has been a teacher of some kind at some point of their life. Whether it was my Nana who taught in Saint Louis Public Schools for decades, or my Uncle who, throughout my elementary school years, would sneak attack me with multiplication drills whenever he was in town. (I am certain he is the sole reason I know my 7 multiplication table as well as I do).  

My upbringing and education taught me the value of teachers from a young age. I recognized the importance of appreciating and respecting my teachers. One of the worst things I could do in school—which would surely get me in a ton of trouble at home —was disrespecting a teacher or authority figure. The adults in my family made sure I understood, as much as my young mind could, that my teachers worked hard because they cared about me and that I would not get far in life I did not learn the lessons they strived for me to understand.  

I was lucky to have a educational upbringing full of amazing teachers both young and old. They were passionate about their subjects and their students and they made me excited to learn the knowledge they passed on. I looked up to my teachers, even in the subjects I hated, because they would be just as excited as I was when a concept finally clicked and my confidence grew in the subjects that I could never consider pursuing more than the level required to pass the grade that I was in.   

Because of my respect for their position and my love of school, teachers often really liked me. I looked forward to parent teacher conferences because they were like scheduled sessions of praise for me throughout my school years. This is not to say that I had amazing relationships with every teacher I ever encountered and succeeded in every class. There were definitely serious hiccups throughout my schooling experience: teachers who I did not like , teachers who did not like me, times when I failed, times when I did not work as hard as a should, times when I was told I would not succeed. When I got to college there were classes, and professors, and whole subjects that I absolutely and completely detested with such force that it shook me. However, all in all I had an overwhelmingly positive relationship with school and educators throughout my life as a student, even including all the failures, missteps, misunderstandings, and boredom that I inevitably encountered.

While I have always had respect for teachers, I never really desired to be one. From my view point teaching seemed like a ridiculously tiring occupation: you're on your feet all day, you're always in class, you have homework every night, each year a new sort of emotional rollercoaster, and you don’t even have that great of a paycheck. I saw the toll it took on the adults in my family, heard the stories of successes and failures in the classroom, and thought it’d be better that I become a doctor, lawyer, or business person; something with less homework and better pay. I know you must be thinking it is pretty ironic that I have this view on the profession,  seeing as I am currently a teacher. (Members of my family will find in doubly ironic because they always say I would make a wonderful teacher.) But honestly, this experience has almost solidified my desire to not be a teacher (at least so far). 

I have spent several weeks in the classroom at this point playing different roles: lead teacher, co-teacher, assistant teacher, and sole teacher. Every time I step into the classroom I am wracked with nerves. Even when I am relaxed I stumble over what I am going to say, how I am going to say it, and in what order I am supposed to say it. It makes it doubly difficult that at best my students understand most of what I am saying and at worst they are staring at me with blank (and slightly frightened) faces because not a single word of what I have said has gotten through. The combination of my tendency to talk too fast when I am nervous, my strange accent, and my lack of knowledge of BM phrases that are functional for the classroom, causes me to seriously struggle. Nevertheless, students get extremely pumped when I enter their classrooms  (or even walk past their classrooms), I basically cannot walk around my school without being greeted with a chorus of “hi teacher how are you?”.  It makes me feel like a celebrity and also sort of like an alien. 

Everyday I am shuffling between two distinct ideas I have about what my focus is supposed to be here: that I am supposed to ensure my students gain knowledge of the English language and gain confidence in using English, and that I am supposed to ensure that my students have fun in every class I lead. I still have yet to strike the right balance to make sure both of these things are happening at once, especially because getting me students to actually speak in full sentences is akin to pulling teeth. Not because they do not have the language but because they are so gripped by the insurmountable fear of being wrong that often they would rather say nothing than to pronounce something incorrectly. Typically I simply embarrass students into answering questions or reading passages. (I enjoy the tactic where you get everyone in class to chant and cheer and applaud the particular student who refuses to speak until they just have to stand up and read the damn sentence or just melt into the floor.) But even then it is extremely slow going. I make a point to being extremely encouraging when correcting students written and oral work but there’s only so much I can do.  I struggle with the idea that I am not doing the best to help students, even though they are enthusiastic and seem to have fun (most of the time) when I am leading a lesson I constructed for myself. I get the overwhelming sense that students like having me in class because I am just different from the regular teacher and not because my lessons are particularly fun, interesting, or enlightening. 

And then there is the difference between the actual resources I have at this school compared to the resources I was exposed to during my education. I was blessed to go to a school with a TON of resources: smart-boards, high speed internet, endless art supplies, laptops for every student, projectors and computers in every class room. At the school where I teach there is not a projector anywhere, the internet sometimes works, I cannot assume my students have access to internet or computers at their homes, the library is small, and any art supplies I need I will have to purchase and bring with me to class. So it makes it basically impossible to mimic many of the projects and lessons I did in high school even if I wanted to do them on a simpler scale. Add that to the fact that the majority of the time when I am planning a lesson for a class it is, at the most, a couple hours before the class starts and, at the least, walking to the classroom when I bump into the lead teacher and they ask me, “So what are we going to teach today?”. Add that to the fact that using art integration and creative expression in lessons is basically an alien concept in schools here (and basically the only way I know how to teach) and it has me sweating (more so than the heat already does) and trying hard not to pull my hair out. It makes for a stressful situation to say the least. I do not say this to complain about the Malaysian Education system or to brag about the schools I attended, but just to say that it is layer of being a foreign teacher that impacts my ability to be an effective teacher. Naturally, I anticipated that I would have challenges adjusting to and fitting my abilities into the system of my school, but it was not until I had to operate in a school that was vastly different from my own experience that I realized how much the teachers I had influenced my understanding of what teaching looks like and what it means to be a good teacher. 

But to be clear, this is not my way of telling you guys that I am quitting or giving up. I have never in my life felt so consistently exhausted both physically and mentally. I get home at the end of the day and just collapse into a chair at the kitchen table for hours before pulling myself up to workout and make dinner for myself. In the mornings I drag myself out of bed cursing my schedule that forces me to be up and out of the house before the sun rises. But I get so much joy from spending time with my students, it is amazing to watch them open up to me more and more as the weeks have passed. This work is like a complicated puzzle and when the pieces fit together and students understand me and enjoy what we are doing and are broadening their confidence and skills, it is an incredible high. But just like when solving a complicated puzzle, most of the time the pieces don't fit and I'm constantly turning and twisting (and flipping and standing on my head and doing backbends) to get my students understand me and encourage them to use full sentences. 

When I express my insecurities and downfalls to friends and family in education they assure me that a lot of my nerves about being affective, being likable, being engaging, being respected etc are super common, especially for new teachers. And I know they say it to make me feel better but it honestly doesn’t. It just makes me feel a little crazy for thinking I could do this in the first place. It makes me even more sure about my decision to never choose a career in teaching full time.

More than anything this experience has given me a serious reality check to the struggles educators go through. When I get home from school I often talk to my roommates about how in awe I am about the strength of character (and physical strength) teachers have to have. I am not even a real teacher, I don’t have to deal with so much that an actual teacher must deal with and I am completely overwhelmed every single day. But at the same time, the moments of joy and appreciation are so warm and genuine from students that I do get a glimpse into the reasoning behind why teachers go to work everyday.  

If nothing else this experience so far has renewed my belief that education is power and my respect for the people who decide to make education their life’s mission. I have always appreciated my teachers, mostly because I was raised to. Now that respect is colored with a sense of understanding that I did not have before. When I think about all the teachers I had in my life I feel both awe and gratitude. I did not understand the  magnitude of the sacrifice they were giving to me. Not only did they share their knowledge but they gave me their sleep, their happiness, their mental health, their physical well being, their relationships, their free time, their money and all they asked for in return was that I made my best effort. Teaching is a profession of altruism. Teachers, everyday, expect to give more than they receive. It takes a strength of character of heroic proportions. I have always thought back to my favorite classes and teachers with fondness, but now even the classes I completely hated and felt like pure torture when I was in them are colored with a new sense of appreciation and genuine pleasure for having gone through them. 

If I could implore you to do something it would be this simple thing. The next time you take moment to be appreciative, to thank the people who sacrificed for your success. Remember to think of your teachers, from both in and out of the classroom, who gave themselves to you knowing full well and not minding one bit that you might never understand the gift they were giving to you and how much of themselves came with it. 

Thank you for all the educators who modeled what a good teacher was for me. More than anything I hope that I can make you proud! 

Be Bold

Yesterday I was so busy I forgot to eat. 

Before yesterday, I honestly thought people who would say that “they were so busy they forgot to eat” were telling white lies. I was sure it was more like they thought about eating, but decided to finish what they we're doing instead of eating. I couldn’t understand that someone could be so focused on what they were doing that they could not notice their stomach growling. Don’t get me wrong I have been incredibly busy before yesterday. It is not as if yesterday was the first time in my life that I felt overwhelmed with deadlines and responsibilities, but I have never forgotten to eat. I have definitely chosen to put doing something I needed to do above feeding myself, but I have never just not realized that I haven't eaten for 10 hours.  But yesterday that is exactly what happened to me. I just… didn’t even consider food until I got home and felt like I might actually faint. (Don’t worry Mom, I did not faint. I made some peas and kidney beans and went to bed at 8:30 pm.) 

This week has been what I am considering my first real week at as an ETA at my school. The few weeks prior this one were epically boring. I did not have a schedule and so I had absolutely nothing to do. I did not know any teachers and therefore did not know who to ask about having anything to do. I considered blogging about my experience but it was so full of confusion, boredom, anger, frustration, stress and more confusion that the resulting blog post would have been riddled with more angst than the diary of a high school student. So I refrained. For both your sake and mine.  Because I was not in a good place emotionally and I did not want to subject you to reading about it just as much as I did not want to subject myself to reflecting on it. Just know that in my first three weeks I did very very little, was barely in the classroom, took several naps at my desk in the teacher’s room, finished a book and a half, and cried a lot at home (both to myself and to my housemates) because I could not fathom an entire school year filled with empty meaningless, directionless days like the ones I was experiencing. 

And then last week on Friday there came a light at the end of the tunnel: I finally  got my hands on the elusive schedule: this schedule was my key to feeling useful! I could go into classes with confidence because the schedule would tell me where I was supposed to be and when! I would finally meet some teachers other than the ones who sat near me and the few who were brave enough to strike up conversations with me in the canteen. I could really start my work! 

My feelings of elation and happiness quickly dissipated when I actually looked over this sad excuse for a schedule. I only had 5 hours of class a week. FIVE HOURS. (Keep in mind that I have to be at school from 7:30 to 2:35 Monday through Thursday and 7:30 to 12 on Fridays. Thats roughly 30 hours a week.) AND THIS SCHEDULE ONLY GAVE ME FIVE FREAKING HOURS OF ANYTHING TO DO AT ALL. Additionally, 3 out of 5 of those hours were in classes that were not English classes, which means they were conducted entirely in Malay. A language which I do not speak. I wanted to scream. I almost did. (I would have had I not been sitting in the middle of the teacher’s room.) I wanted to slap my mentor. I wanted to pack my stuff up, book a plane ticket home and get my butt back to the United States where at least I could understand what the heck people around me were saying. I was so defeated and so stressed out.  I did not know what else to do so I simply picked up my bag, and went to a history class that was on my schedule for the day, I sat through a lesson on the importance of learning history, conducted entirely in Malay, then headed back to the teacher’s room to respectfully argue my case to my mentor.  

My mentor basically told me I had to stay in classes that were outside of the English Department. Citing some vague rule from someone in some position of my school’s administration that I had to be an assistant for the entire school and not just the English teachers. But he also told me I was free to add and subtract from my schedule as I saw fit. This was my real saving grace. He basically told me I could make my own schedule. So I decided two things that day before I headed home for the weekend: first, I would not spend another day without getting into some classes, and second, I would stop waiting around for assistance or instruction.  

Side note: My New Year’s Resolution this year was to be bold. I decided that 2017 would be my year full of bold choices the night before I drove back to St. Louis from New Orleans with my sister. I had a conversation with a friend about holding back feelings for fear of them not being received well. It was during that conversation that I promised myself to be bold. Because nothing ventured nothing gained, right?  

So while I thought that moving to a different freaking country was a bold enough move. I was wrong. Bold choices were about to come from me left and right baby. Because sitting back and waiting because I did not want to step on toes did not get me anywhere. (Has that really gotten anyone anywhere ever? I do not think so.)  

So Monday morning, after a wonderful talk filled with endless support from my amazing housemates (shout out to  Jamie and Lalitha for helping me see the wins when I have been blinded by the losses)—I got to work creating the schedule that I really wanted. I basically went around to the classrooms for Form 1 and 2 students and looked at when they had English class on their schedule. Then would show up a few minutes before the class was scheduled to begin to intercept the teacher on their way to class and ask them if I could put it on my schedule. This plan actually worked much better than I anticipated! I now have about 12 hours of regularly scheduled classes in addition to the classes agreed to take on from time to time as a substitute teacher when teachers are absent. Through this method I also accidentally bumped into an art teacher and started chatting with her, and she said she was open to having me in her Art classes! Way better than history or Geography and still keeps my mentor happy because it is a non-English department class! I have yet to hit my goal of 20 classroom hours a week but I am slowly building more classes. I also started the process of convincing my mentor to allow me into the higher Form classes and I have a trial run in a few Form 4 classes next week! And because I have students that I will be teaching regularly I am able to start gaining interest for the English Language After School Club I am head of as a part of my position as an ETA. Win, Win, Win, Win!  

While I have been having a lot more wins than losses this week compared to the previous weeks, there are definitely still things that I do not understand/ get extremely frustrated by. One thing is the school schedule. While I know technically what time classes begin and end I am still not quite in the groove of the actually schedule in my school: I show up early and late to classes when I think I am right on time, I keep getting lost, and can only figure out how to order one thing in the canteen at school (But that one thing is delicious so I ain’t mad). I have also had several instances this week where I have a class on the schedule, go to the classroom, and there is no one there. Then I find out later it is because that class or that form of students has been pulled for an assembly or the lead teacher canceled the class without telling me. (I am sitting in the teacher’s room as I write this because I was supposed to have a class and no one was in the room and I couldn’t find any of the students to find out what was going on.)   

So basically, this experience so far has been exhausting and rewarding, confusing and  embarrassing, irritating and yet super fun. Any time I spend with students fills me with joy (even when I am fumbling around in front of a class because I prepared a lesson that requires a better grasp of English than the students have and they are just looking at me like I am crazy/from a different planet/speaking German). When I am feeling super down I just walk around campus and get bombarded with an enthusiastic chorus of “Hi Teacher!” as I pass students and it makes me feel a little better. Reminders of the student’s enthusiasm that I am here—even when they cannot understand what I am saying—is great because it makes me feel welcomed way more than anything else. The feeling of being wanted is so important especially when I am so far from home and so far removed from anything familiar. (But at least I can find barbecue potato chips here!) 

I guess my biggest take away from my time so far has been the lesson I have been learning over and over since I left the comfort of the life I had created for myself in New Orleans. That lesson is this: be brave, be bold, be yourself, and you will be happier for it. 

And now for some pictures:   

Me and some Form 5 students after a lively game of UNO during lunch break!

Lalitha, Jamie, and me on the day we found out our placements! 

Nasi Goreng Ayam (fried rice and fried chicken) aka the only thing I know how to order from my school canteen.